Chapter 6 #2
After the call ended, Dominique stared at her for a long moment, then set the bread down as if official analysis required both hands.
“Well, look at Mr. Architecture trying to earn extra credit.” Trinity laughed, though emotion still moved beneath her smile.
“Do not make it silly.” “I am not making it silly. I am making it survivable.” Dominique reached for her tea, her expression softening.
“That is actually good, Trinity. He asked to come closer instead of waiting for you to drag him.” Trinity nodded, allowing herself to receive that truth.
“Yes. It is good.” Dominique looked toward the foyer flowers, then back at her friend.
“Now I need Jamal to stop processing like he is downloading updates on slow Wi-Fi.” Trinity nearly choked on her tea, and Dominique smiled with satisfaction.
“Do not laugh too hard. I care about that man, and he is emotionally buffering.”
In Queens that same evening, Jamal Mercer sat in his kitchen with a plate of food going cold while his cousin Terrence gave the kind of advice that proved family love could be sincere and still poorly calibrated.
Terrence had stopped by after work, taken one look at Jamal’s face, and announced that a man staring at rice like it had betrayed him was either in love, in debt, or avoiding a doctor.
Jamal made the mistake of telling him part of the truth, and now Terrence sat across from him with all the confidence of a man who knew almost nothing and intended to speak for a long time.
“So she owns a funeral home,” Terrence said, leaning back.
“That is not the worst thing a woman can own. She could own a nightclub, a pit bull with trust issues, or a storage unit full of her ex’s furniture.
” Jamal rubbed a hand over his face. “That is not helpful.” “It is perspective.” “It is nonsense wearing shoes.” Terrence shrugged. “Still walking, though.”
Jamal leaned back in his chair, frustrated less by Terrence than by the fact that he had no clean way to explain the conflict without sounding smaller than he wanted to be.
“I care about Dominique,” he said, looking toward the dark kitchen window.
“I care about her a lot. She is funny, beautiful, brilliant, warm, serious when it counts, and she makes me feel like I am being invited into a life that has substance. But then I walk into her house, see flowers, hear her talk about families, and suddenly my mind goes somewhere heavy. I hate that. I hate that she sees it. I hate that I keep needing time when she is the one who has spent her life having to explain herself.” Terrence was quiet for once, and Jamal looked back at him, surprised.
His cousin’s expression had shifted from comic to thoughtful.
“Then maybe stop making it about whether you can handle her job,” Terrence said.
“Maybe ask whether you can handle being the kind of man a woman like that deserves.” Jamal stared at him.
“That was almost wise.” Terrence nodded solemnly.
“I save wisdom for emergencies and women with property.”
By the next evening, Jamal arrived at Dominique’s brownstone carrying no flowers, which she noticed immediately and appreciated more than she expected.
Instead, he brought a wrapped box of tea, a small container of pastries from a bakery she liked, and the expression of a man who had come prepared to do something besides look handsome in the doorway.
Dominique opened the door wearing a black off-the-shoulder sweater and fitted trousers, her hair falling over one shoulder, her face composed but not guarded enough to hide the pleasure his arrival gave her.
Jamal’s gaze moved over her with familiar warmth, and for a moment the attraction between them rose before either spoke.
He did not pretend not to notice her, and she did not pretend not to feel the notice.
“I did not bring flowers,” he said after greeting her, his voice carrying both humor and apology.
Dominique stepped aside, allowing him in.
“I see that.” “I thought tea might be safer.” She took the box from him and glanced at the label.
“Tea is not safer. Tea implies you expect conversation.” His smile was quiet, sincere. “I do.”
They stood in the foyer longer than necessary, close enough for the air between them to remember every kiss they had shared and every hesitation that had complicated them.
The arrangement on the console table remained where it had been, and Jamal looked at it because pretending not to would have been its own kind of dishonesty.
This time, however, he did not flinch, did not rush his eyes away, and did not act as though the flowers had caught him doing something wrong.
He looked, then looked back at Dominique.
“A family sent those?” he asked. Dominique studied him for a moment before answering.
“Yes. Their mother’s service was earlier this week.
” Jamal nodded slowly. “They are beautiful.” “They are.” He stepped a little closer, his voice softer.
“Tell me what they mean to you.” The question reached her so unexpectedly that she did not answer right away.
Then she set the tea on the console, touched one pale bloom with the tip of her finger, and said, “They mean somebody was grateful in the middle of grief. They mean a family wanted to leave beauty somewhere after a hard day. They mean I helped them enough that they thought of me when they had every reason to think only of themselves.” Jamal absorbed that, and when he reached for her hand, he did it without hesitation.
“Then I need to learn to see them that way first.”
Dominique looked down at their joined hands, then up at him, and the emotion in her eyes carried both tenderness and warning.
“Do not say that because it sounds good.” Jamal’s grip tightened slightly.
“I am saying it because I saw what my hesitation did to you, and I do not want to keep making you pay for my learning curve.” Her face shifted, softening even as her pride remained standing.
“That is the first thing you have said that makes me feel like you understand my side of it.” Jamal nodded, and the humility in the gesture mattered.
“I am late getting there.” “Yes,” she said, because love did not require her to protect him from the truth.
“You are.” He accepted that without flinching, and the simple act of acceptance made her respect him more.
“Then let me arrive honestly,” he said. “Not perfectly. Honestly.” Dominique’s mouth curved despite herself.
“You and Cedric have been taking a class in emotionally inconvenient sentences?” Jamal smiled.
“No. But I have a cousin who accidentally said something useful between nonsense.” She laughed then, and the sound eased them into the living room, where the conversation that followed did not solve everything but finally began including both their burdens instead of only his.
The conversation continued long after the tea had been poured and forgotten.
The brownstone seemed to settle around them as the evening deepened, creating the kind of quiet that encouraged honesty rather than interrupted it.
Dominique sat curled into one corner of the sofa while Jamal occupied the opposite end, though neither remained there for very long.
Distance had become increasingly difficult to maintain around each other.
Even when uncertainty entered the room, attraction followed closely behind, refusing to surrender its place.
That reality complicated everything because it would have been easier to walk away from someone who inspired only confusion.
Instead, they were trying to navigate confusion while also carrying affection, admiration, chemistry, and the growing awareness that both were becoming important to the other.
Jamal wrapped both hands around his tea and studied the steam rising from the cup before speaking again.
"Can I tell you something that I'm not proud of?
" The question carried enough seriousness that Dominique immediately gave him her full attention.
She nodded once, encouraging him to continue without interruption.
Jamal leaned back against the sofa and exhaled slowly.
"The first time you told me about the funeral home, I spent several days trying to decide whether I could handle it.
That's embarrassing to admit now, but it's true.
I kept looking at the profession like it was some separate thing I had to evaluate.
Could I live with it? Could I adjust to it?
Could I get comfortable with it? Every question was centered around me. "
Dominique listened carefully, her expression thoughtful rather than defensive.
Jamal shook his head and laughed softly at himself.
"The problem is that I never stopped to ask a more important question."
"What question?"
His eyes met hers.
"What has it cost you?"
The room became very still.
Not awkward.
Not tense.
Still in the way meaningful moments often are.
Dominique lowered her cup slowly.
"What do you mean?"
Jamal's gaze remained steady.
"I mean everybody keeps talking about what your profession means to other people."
He gestured lightly toward the foyer where the flowers still rested.
"How people react."
His attention returned to her.
"How people judge."
A pause followed.
Then he continued.
"But nobody talks about what it costs you to carry all of that."
Something in Dominique's expression softened.
Not completely.
But enough.
Jamal leaned forward slightly.
"I started thinking about it after our last conversation."
His voice grew quieter.
"People look at the flowers differently."
Dominique nodded.
"Yes."
"They look at the business differently."
"Yes."
"They look at you differently."
The answer took longer.
Eventually she nodded again.